


make a new ending

by Spikedluv



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Background Derek Hale, Background Sheriff Stilinski, Community: rounds_of_kink, M/M, evil!Deaton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-22 17:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11972202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spikedluv/pseuds/Spikedluv
Summary: Someone is committing ritual murders in Beacon Hills.  Peter only gets involved out of self-interest.





	make a new ending

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place at some indeterminate time after season three. Erica, Boyd, and Allison aren’t specifically mentioned, so we can all pretend that they’re still alive if we want to.
> 
> Contains reference to my headcanon that Peter/Chris were together when they were younger, and they are the reason Gerard went after the Hale family.
> 
> Written for [Rounds of Kink](http://rounds-of-kink.livejournal.com/) for the prompt: _Peter/Any, heartbeat, predatory/prey pairings_. This story got away from me and I kind of failed at the ‘predatory/prey pairings’ which is more implied than explicit. Sorry!
> 
> Written: September 1, 2017
> 
>   _You can’t go back in time to make a new start, but you can go forward in time and make a new ending by what you do better today. ~Joseph Cubby_
> 
> ETA: I'm so excited to include this fic cover that was created by Annapods for my donation to Harvey_Fanaid.
> 
>  
> 
> [ ](https://imgur.com/aGpOCdb)  
> 

Even twenty years later Peter immediately recognized the heartbeat. The clench of his jaw, quickly released, was the only outward sign of discomfort he allowed himself. Peter kept his head bent, his eyes on the book he held (although the words had stopped making sense), even when the door to the loft slid open without a knock to announce the intruder.

There was a moment of hesitation that almost made Peter smile when the trespasser realized that he was there. The moment drew out when Peter didn’t acknowledge the other man’s presence. He could almost hear the eye roll when Chris finally said, “I know you know I’m here.”

Peter carefully turned the page before answering. “Do you?”

Chris took a step into the loft, but held position near the open door. Smart, Peter thought.

“I’m looking for Derek.”

“He’s not here.”

Chris took a breath, then said with exaggerated calm, “Do you know where he is?”

Peter weighed the benefit of continuing this war of words, and decided that getting Chris out of the loft quickly was the better path. “The Sheriff came by,” Peter said. “Wanted Derek’s help with a new case.”

“Alright,” Chris said, then, his voice tight, added, “Thank you.”

Peter used all of his resources to appear unaffected. “You and Derek are BFFs now, don’t you have his number?”

“The loft was on my way,” Chris said, and then cut off as if he’d given too much away.

Peter waited until Chris had turned to leave before speaking again. “Next time, knock.” He set the book down on the table and slowly rose to his feet, turned to lean against the table so he was facing Chris’ back. “Sure, we’re just animals, but that’s no reason to not be polite.”

Chris held still for a few moments, as if he was waging an internal battle, and then he continued out into the hall. “I’ll do that,” Chris said, sliding the door closed between them.

Peter stood frozen where he was, listening to the thump of Chris’ heartbeat as it faded, the sounds of his footsteps moving down the hall, then down the stairs and out of the building, the car engine starting and then moving away, diminishing until all Peter heard was the memory of it. He released his grip on the table behind him, jerking his claws out of the wood.

Peter threw off the feeling of having been ambushed as self-preservation surged to the fore. He grabbed his leather jacket off the back of the chair and pulled it on as he took the stairs to the roof two at a time. If both Sheriff Stilinski and Chris Argent were looking for Derek, something was happening in Beacon Hills that Peter needed to know about.

~*~*~*~

“What are you doing here?”

Peter had heard the familiar heartbeat from the moment Chris entered the Preserve, parking his SUV on a little used access road before making his way to this spot on foot. He’d had plenty of time to leave so he could avoid discovery, but he’d remained.

“Same as you, I imagine,” Peter said absently as he continued to study the mutilated body. The third in as many weeks.

Finally Peter stood and backed up a step, gesturing towards the body, a silent request for Chris to take a look. Chris gave Peter a look, then turned his attention to the body. Runes were carved into the flesh; the eyes were missing. The first body had been missing the heart, Peter had learned when he’d broken into the coroner’s office, and the second had the tongue removed. Both bodies has been covered with runes.

“How did you get here before Derek and Stilinski?” Chris said.

Peter had tapped Derek’s phone, but instead of telling Chris that, he said, “I could ask you the same. Still listening in on the police radios?”

“They don’t always know what they’re getting into,” Chris said, reflexively defending the procedure routinely used by hunters. He indicated the body with a tilt of his head. “Is there a scent you can track?”

“No,” Peter said, the word coming out almost a growl. There was no blood at the scene, so whoever had performed this ritual had done so elsewhere, then dumped the body here. They’d have needed to carry the body in and walked back out, but there was no trace of them on the body or on the ground. Cleaning the body before disposing of it would account for the lack of evidence on the body itself, but not the lack of footprints or scent around the body. “They must be using a spell to keep from leaving a trace of themselves.”

Chris nodded. “That’s what Derek thought.”

“Well,” Peter said, “if Derek thought so . . .”

“You trained Derek,” Chris said. “Shouldn’t you be proud that he learned so well?”

Peter was overcome with rage at the cavalier way Chris spoke of the past, as if his family hadn’t been responsible for the death of most of Peter’s. He moved before Chris had a chance to react. His hand around Chris’ throat, Peter slammed him into a tree and held him there. Chris’ heartbeat sped up, but he didn’t otherwise react.

“Tell me something, Christopher,” Peter said, putting his face close to Chris’ and sniffing. There was no outward show of fear, but the scent of it was there, if faint, because Chris knew exactly what Peter was capable of. “Did you ever consider apologizing for the fact that your twisted sister – and father, because let’s be honest, Kate was a stone cold killer, but she wasn’t all that smart, so she wouldn’t have done anything without Gerard putting the idea in her head – burned my family alive?”

Chris swallowed hard, but he didn’t respond. Possibly because Peter’s claws against his throat kept him from doing so. Chris was well-armed – Peter could smell the metal and gun oil over the scent of blood – but he wisely didn’t make a move towards any of his weapons.

Peter bared his teeth and bent his head towards Chris’ throat. He could bite him, tear out his throat and leave him here to bleed out before Derek and the Sheriff arrived. Instead Peter said, “Do you have any idea how much I hate you?”

“Some,” Chris managed to say.

“Whatever depth of hatred you imagine,” Peter said, “now imagine it a hundredfold.”

The faint sound of an engine reached Peter’s ears. Derek and the Sheriff were just arriving and would soon be at the crime scene. He released his grip on Chris’ throat and stepped back. Chris coughed and raised one hand, not to reach for any of his weapons, but to rub his throat where Peter’s claws had left pinpricks of blood.

The scent of it filled Peter’s nostrils and reminded him of a much simpler time. The impulse to kill Chris and erase all last trace of the naive young man he’d once been was fierce. Peter pushed it down and turned to leave, walking until he was out of sight, and then letting himself shift and break into a run.

~*~*~*~

Peter ran until he realized he was running in circles. He tried to take a different path, but five minutes later he noticed he’d been turned around again and was headed away from where he’d wanted to go. Peter stopped and looked around, trying to orient himself. He’d spent most of his life inside the Preserve, in both forms, and very little of it was unrecognizable to him.

The path he was on now was overgrown, but it should’ve led him to . . . There was a blank spot in Peter’s mind when he tried to think of it. He remembered a conversation with Stiles about a memory that Talia had removed from both him and Derek: the location of the Nemeton.

Peter studied the surrounding area with more intent. He took a step forward, and then another. Now that he was concentrating he could feel the whisper of _something_ trying to turn him away. Peter fought it, and took another step, then another, until he stepped out of the tree line into a clearing. In the center of the clearing was a stump that was more than ten feet across.

Talia had taken the memory of the location of the Nemeton from Peter, but she hadn’t taken all of his memories of it, and he recalled the tall tree it had once been before someone had cut it down. She hadn’t laid a geas on him to keep him from stumbling upon the Nemeton, though, so that must be the Nemeton itself.

Whatever form of misdirection it was using hadn’t protected it from being cut down. Or from being found by someone and used as a sacrificial altar. Peter had smelled the blood long before he stood before the Nemeton where it darkened the top of the stump. The bodies had been mutilated and drained of blood right here. There was only one reason for someone to do that: they were trying to power the Nemeton. But to what purpose?

Peter tipped his head back and roared. A moment later an answering roar reached his ears: Derek. Peter took out his phone to confirm that there were no bars of service. He roared again, and then again, Derek’s answering roars getting more frustrated. Finally Derek burst into the clearing.

“What the hell was that?” Derek said.

Peter indicated the stump. “The Nemeton protecting itself.”

“I thought you didn’t know where the Nemeton was,” Derek said, stepping closer to the stump, nostrils flaring at the scent of blood.

“I didn’t. I realized I was running in circles and decided to find out why.”

A moment later Stilinski and Chris stepped out of the trees. They’d been slower than Derek, but neither of them was terribly winded from the run. Stilinski stepped closer to the tree because his eyesight wasn’t as good as Peter’s and Derek’s. Chris stopped beside Derek.

“That looks like blood,” Stilinski said.

Peter snorted.

“It is,” Derek said.

“So they were killed here and the bodies moved. Why?”

“They were sacrifices,” Chris said. “To power the Nemeton.”

“Who would want to do that?” Stilinski said, his suspicious gaze falling on Peter.

“Don’t look at me,” Peter said. “Talia took the memory of the Nemeton’s location from me.”

“Then how did you find it?”

“You’re welcome,” Peter said.

~*~*~*~

Peter returned to his townhouse. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Stiles that he had an apartment downtown, but it hadn’t been the entire truth. The building was owned by a trust set up by Peter’s great-grandfather, and the townhouse that Peter lived in had access on every floor to a hidden staircase that could get him to the roof or the basement, where secret tunnels led to the abandoned train station. (It was actually more of a lair than he’d been willing to admit to Stiles.)

Aside from the books that had been stored at the townhouse, all of the lore had been lost when Kate Argent burned down the Hale house. Peter had been able to procure some books since he’d woken from his coma, but the one he was looking for had been one that his grandfather had kept locked up because it was too dangerous.

Peter entered the den and pulled the bookshelf away from the wall. Behind it was a fireproof safe. Peter unlocked the safe and drew out a book wrapped in a protective cloth. He laid it on the desk and folded back the cloth. Peter touched his hand reverently to the cover, then opened it. There was nothing resembling an index, but Peter knew he’d seen some of those symbols somewhere, so he studied each page thoroughly before carefully turning it.

If there was a record of the type of symbols that had been carved into the bodies, it would be inside this tome.

~*~

Peter was startled out of his contemplation of the grain of the wood floor by a knock on the door. He turned his head and stared, his eyes wide. He recognized the heartbeat, but he couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard it until after the knock. Peter’s only excuse was that he’d allowed himself to get lost in thought over what he’d discovered in the spell book. Also, he may have grown complacent thinking that no one knew where he was staying.

But that wasn’t entirely true. Derek might not care, and the rest of his ragtag pack might not have any interesting in finding out where Peter spent his nights, but there was one person who would probably guess. Peter closed his eyes and the memories assailed him.

~*~

“What is this place?” Chris said the first time Peter brought him there.

Peter had been young, and in love, and he hadn’t cared about revealing a family asset to Chris. It sat unused, so Peter claimed it for his own. When they needed more privacy than they could find in the Preserve he brought Chris there.

Although the games they played in the Preserve (Peter gave Chris a head start before chasing him down, and sometimes they reversed roles), got Peter’s blood pumping, he liked the stolen moments when they could engage in actual foreplay and relax in the afterglow without worrying about being discovered naked and covered in leaves by a member of either of their families.

Peter had replied, “My great-grandfather’s investment,” as he drew Chris into the living room and pushed him down onto the couch.

~*~*~*~

Peter shook off the memories and stood with stiff, angry motions. No matter the excuse, he should’ve heard Chris before he got close enough to knock on the door. Peter kept enough control to glide silently across the floor as he moved to the door, skirting the board that creaked. He’d fix it, but it would give him warning if anyone ever got past the front door.

Peter listened closely to ensure that Chris was alone, then extended his hearing to make sure no one waited for him outside. Only when Peter had determined that there was nothing out of the ordinary in a five block radius of the townhouse did he pull the door open.

“What are you doing here?” Peter said in lieu of greeting.

Chris didn’t look surprised to see him, or at Peter’s less than friendly demeanor. “We need to talk.”

Peter’s lips curled up in what some might generously call a smile. He snarled. “What could we possibly have to talk about?”

“The druid who’s making sacrifices to the Nemeton,” Chris said evenly.

“What makes you think I know anything about it?”

“You recognized at least one of the symbols,” Chris said, “maybe more. And you hightailed it back here to do research. I thought we could share information.”

“What information do you have that I could possibly want?”

Chris crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorframe as if he had no fear that Peter would grab him by the throat again. Or that he minded talking about murder on the front step. “There hasn’t been time to run DNA tests, but the Coroner’s Office has confirmed that the blood on the Nemeton matches the blood types of the three victims.”

“That’s hardly surprising,” Peter said.

“We both know there’s only one druid in town who likes to play both sides of the fence.”

“What?” Peter said. He tried to keep his voice even, but he knew he hadn’t been able to control his expression at the comment.

Chris shifted. “Maybe I do have some information you might want.”

Peter wanted to scream. Instead he took a restrained step backwards and gestured for Chris to enter the small foyer. Chris moved past Peter. He closed the door and took a deep, steadying breath before turning back; he didn’t have time for more than that. Chris was looking around the hallway, as if cataloguing the changes since his last visit.

Peter shoved down the mix of emotions that clogged his throat and strode past Chris. He turned into the living room and took a seat right in the middle of the couch. If Chris was thrown by it, he gave no indication. He seated himself in a chair at the end of the coffee table, facing the fireplace.

“Talk,” Peter said.

“You should go first,” Chris said. “You’ll be too angry after you hear what I have to say.”

Peter’s response was silence. Chris sighed and began speaking.

“Deaton was the Hale Pack Emissary,” Chris said.

Peter knew that. He’d been a precocious child, and hadn’t given in easily to the notion that Talia would be the Alpha when their mother passed on the spark. He’d learned to sneak around at an early age, because all the things they didn’t want him to overhear were all the things he wanted to know.

“He wasn’t above making a deal with Gerard,” Chris said, reluctantly forcing out the words.

“Like what?” Peter said, the words garbled because, like a teenager first learning how to control the change, he’d shifted enough to be speaking around his fangs.

Chris hesitated. “Deucalion.”

That didn’t surprise Peter. Deucalion had gone to a meeting to talk peace and had been blinded after a massacre. Gerard’s claim that the werewolves attacked first had always sounded fishy to Peter because Deucalion had been the greatest peacemaker of his time. Even worse than Talia. It stood to reason that Gerard would want him out of the way, and would find a way to make the werewolves appear to be at fault.

“What else?” Peter said. He knew that his eyes had bled to blue, but Chris didn’t react at the sight of them.

“That’s the only thing I _know_ ,” Chris said.

“But?”

“But I have my suspicions. After I found out what Kate had done . . .”

“You think that Deaton conspired with your father to kill my entire family?” Peter said.

Chris’ lips thinned, then he shrugged. “I think it’s very possible.”

“And you’re just telling me this now?” Peter’s voice was low, dangerous.

“I didn’t know about Deucalion until long after it happened, and the other is only conjecture on my part.”

“Does Derek know about this?”

Chris’ silence was answer enough.

“If you’re right, that does explain a few things.”

“Like what?”

Like the fact that the hunters had known about the escape tunnels; like the fact that Deaton had done nothing to help Laura, then Derek, after they’d returned to Beacon Hills.

“I found some of the runes in a spell book,” Peter said.

“What do they mean?” Chris said, leaning forward.

“Legend says that druids taught werewolves to shift from wolf back to human form, though they couldn’t remove the curse entirely,” Peter said. “From that time on they’ve been advisors to the packs. But, just as there have always been men who wanted more power, there have always been emissaries who have wanted to be more than merely advisors.”

“What does Deaton want?”

“He wants to power the Nemeton, but that’s just his first step. The runes are for a summoning spell.”

“What’s he summoning?” Chris said.

“Nothing good.”

Peter retrieved the spell book and showed it to Chris, who compared the runes on the relevant pages to those in the photos he’d taken of the bodies without Stilinski being aware. Once he’d left, making Peter promise not to do anything stupid, Peter returned the book in its protective wrap to the safe, locked it, then slid the bookshelf back into place.

~*~*~*~

“You have so many secrets,” Peter said when Deaton came out of the back of the clinic in response to the bell that rang to announce a client.

Deaton raised an eyebrow.

“Did you think I didn’t know?”

“Know what?” Deaton said, appearing unperturbed. He’d had a lot of practice controlling his physical reactions, though.

“That you were the Hale Pack Emissary.”

Deaton’s shoulders relaxed a fraction, no one but a very observant werewolf would’ve noticed, but it was enough to confirm that Peter was on the right path. “I suspected that you knew. You were always sneaking around, trying to ferret out everyone’s secrets.”

Only Talia’s secrets, which had been Peter’s mistake. “Why didn’t you tell Laura, or Derek?”

“My Alpha was dead because I’d failed her,” Deaton said, injecting sorrow into his voice. “I wasn’t any good to them.”

“Better than nothing, don’t you think?”

“What are you implying, Peter?” Deaton said sharply.

“That maybe you let her down more than once.”

“I didn’t know Laura was back until they found her body, and Derek didn’t trust me; he wouldn’t have listened to anything I had to say.”

“Derek has good instincts.” But Derek was like Talia, too soft. They didn’t have what it took to protect the pack. Peter’s claws popped out.

The door opened and Chris strode into the clinic as if he owned it. Peter did not still find that sexy after all these years, after everything the Argent family had done to the Hales. “Peter,” Chris said dryly. “Dr. Deaton,” he said more genially.

“Mr. Argent,” Deaton said. Neither one of them seemed surprised that Peter didn’t say anything.

Chris handed a batch of photo printouts to Deaton. “Sheriff Stilinski asked me to come by and see if you can help us out with something. Do you recognize these runes?”

Peter held his breath as Deaton took the photos from Chris and studied them one by one. “I’m afraid I don’t,” he finally said. “I could do some research on them, if it would help.”

“That would be a great help, thank you,” Chris said gratefully.

When Chris turned to leave, Deaton slid his gaze back to Peter. “Was there anything else you wanted, Peter?”

Peter bit his tongue and forced his claws to retract. “No.”

Peter followed Chris out of the clinic. Chris didn’t speak until they’d moved farther away from the building, and then it was in a low tone.

“I thought I told you not to do anything stupid.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Peter said, knowing his twelve-year-old comeback would make Chris roll his eyes, and it did. “Besides, I remember when you were the one urging me to do stupid things.”

Chris’ breath caught and his heart raced, as if he hadn’t been prepared because he hadn’t suspected that Peter would go there. Chris swallowed hard, then said, “Was he lying?”

“Yes,” Peter said.

“How do you know?” Chris said. “His heartbeat?”

“No.” Peter’s eyes dropped to Chris’ chest. “He’s too good to make that kind of mistake in front of a werewolf.”

Chris ignored the barb. “Then how do you know he’s lying?”

“He has a tell.” And Peter had seen it twice during his visit. When Deaton had said he didn’t recognize the runes, and when he’d said that he didn’t know Laura was back until they found her body.

“Peter?” Chris said, drawing Peter out of his thoughts.

“I think he killed Laura.”

“But I thought . . .”

Peter’s lips twisted. “Everyone does. Even me. But what if I didn’t?”

“You don’t actually . . . remember . . . killing her?” Chris asked slowly, choosing his words carefully.

“No.” Peter shrugged off the melancholy. “But I probably did. A man could go crazy when he’s left to scream inside his own head for six years.”

“Peter, I . . .”

Peter left before Chris could say anything more.

~*~*~*~

Peter knocked on the driver’s side window and bit back a smile when Chris jumped. “Are you coming?” Peter said when Chris opened the door. He didn’t wait, just started walking down the street to the clinic, keeping to the shadows.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Chris said when he caught up.

“There’s a camera in the back,” Peter said without answering the question. “Can you shoot it out?”

Chris waited until they’d rounded the back of the clinic to pull a gun out of his holster. He loaded a shell of some kind into it and aimed at the camera. Peter stared when the lense didn’t shatter. Instead, a glob of something covered it.

“What was that?”

“Paintball gun,” Chris said with a small smile, showing the gun to Peter before reholstering it.

Peter shook his head. “Boys and their toys,” he said, stiffening the moment the words were out of his mouth. “Let’s go,” he said before the awkward moment could draw out any longer.

Chris pushed Peter aside and picked the lock when Peter would’ve just torn the door off its hinges. Inside they didn’t bother with lights. Peter led the way to Deaton’s office. He let Chris search the more obvious shelves and desk drawers while he searched for a hidden door of some kind. If Deaton had a copy of that spell book, or one like it, he wouldn’t leave something that important, that _dark_ just sitting on the shelf.

“Why do you keep skipping that spot?” Peter finally said when Chris had gone through the shelves twice.

“What spot?” Chris said at the same time Peter’s shoulders straightened.

“That spot,” Peter said as he moved closer to the area Chris had skipped over more than once in his search. “There was some kind of ‘these are not the ‘droids you’re looking for’ spell on the Nemeton, too.”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Nerd.”

Now that they’d noticed it, the spell no longer forced their attention away. Chris pulled all the books off the shelf and opened them while Peter felt around the shelves and back of the case. He finally found a latch in a notch cut into the bottom of one of the shelves. When he pressed it the entire bookcase swung out.

Hidden behind the bookcase was a staircase that went down into the dark. Even Peter’s eyes weren’t good enough to see what was at the bottom. Chris pulled a flashlight from beneath his jacket and gave Peter a moment to shade his eyes before turning it on. They found the light – a string hanging from the ceiling that lit a bulb that was dim from age or dust and which had probably been there since the basement had been dug – and Chris returned the flashlight to its place on his belt next to a Swiss Army knife.

Peter took the lead while Chris propped the bookcase open with one of the books they’d removed from its shelves. He stopped at the bottom and looked around what appeared to be a lab for the modern day druid, with jars filled with everything from mistletoe to what looked like the scale from a very large dragon. That must’ve cost him a pretty penny. On one of the tables lay an open book that from here looked exactly like the one Peter had at the townhouse.

Peter took a step forward at the same time Chris yelled, “Peter, wait!” The warning came too late. Peter had somehow triggered a trap, and a cloud of wolfsbane erupted from the ceiling. Peter breathed it in. The last thing he saw was the worried expression on Chris’ face even as he also choked on the powder.

~*~*~*~

Peter was hiding in a bramble that he’d managed to crawl under without getting stabbed by all the thorns. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the Preserve, which had started up again at his passing. Mere minutes after Peter hid himself the birds stopped singing and the chipmunks stopped chittering. Peter smiled, a tendril of excitement unfurling in his belly as Chris drew near, having managed to track him despite the fact that Peter had traveled some of the distance upon the larger limbs of the trees and backtracked three times in an attempt to lose him.

Peter couldn’t hear the soft step that Chris had perfected, but even though he’d been learning to keep his heartbeat steady, he hadn’t learned to silence it. Moments later the scent of him reached Peter’s nostrils. Peter felt a momentary thrill when Chris passed his hiding place. He’d give Chris a few minutes, and then the hunter would become the prey.

Peter laughed when he heard Chris’ voice. “If you think I’m coming in there to get you, you’re nuts.”

~*~

Peter woke strapped to the stump that was all that was left of the Nemeton.

“Ah, good, you’re waking up,” Deaton said, sounding pleased.

“I am going to tear your throat out. With my teeth,” Peter said. Or tried to.

Deaton ignored the attempt. “Did you really think I would leave my lab unprotected?” he said conversationally as he drew runes on Peter’s skin. “Or that I wouldn’t know you’d discovered the Nemeton when my wards were disturbed?”

Peter tried to look around for Chris while Deaton was absorbed in making sure he got the runes just right.

“You’ve accelerated my schedule, but I’m nothing if not flexible.”

“Is that what you told yourself when you gave Gerard Argent the location of the escape tunnels under the house?” Peter said, the words only slightly slurred.

Deaton’s hand froze. “I wondered if you were talking about something other than my being your family’s emissary when you were at the clinic this afternoon,” he said, then blithely continued painting lines on Peter’s bare skin as if he hadn’t just as much as admitted to having been responsible for the horrible deaths of most of Peter’s family, people who he’d promised to protect.

“If only you’d all died like you were supposed to,” Deaton said absently as he concentrated. “I had a use for Talia’s alpha spark. Instead it went to Laura.”

Peter tugged at the restraints, but he was weakened by the wolfsbane and he had a feeling that Deaton would have taken precautions to make sure they would hold in any case.

“You’re not an Alpha, but you’ll do for this.”

“Why not use Scott?” Peter said.

Deaton smiled, and it made Peter wonder how anyone had ever trusted him.

“He’s the final sacrifice,” Peter guessed. Deaton didn’t deign to reply. “Where’s Chris?” Peter demanded.

“I was surprised to find the two of you together again, after all these years,” Deaton said. “I’ve never sacrificed two at a time before, but tonight is special.”

Peter’s mind swirled with the wolfsbane and all the information Deaton was casually dropping because he expected that Peter wouldn’t live to do anything about it. “It was you,” he said, his voice dead. “You told Gerard about me and Chris.”

“Chris and I,” Deaton corrected by rote, most of his mind preoccupied with his task. “I needed a way in, and you were it.”

Peter was struck speechless.

Deaton stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. “And now the messy part,” he said, setting down the jar of whatever he’d used to draw the runes and picking up what looked like a scalpel. “This is going to hurt.”

“Have you heard enough yet?” Chris said conversationally from Peter’s left.

Deaton looked startled, though at the words or the fact that it was Chris who spoke them Peter couldn’t tell. He looked even more surprised when Stilinski and Derek stepped out of the trees on either side of him. The wolfsbane must really be screwing with his senses because Peter hadn’t realized that either of them were there.

“Yes,” Stilinski said. “Alan Deaton, you’re under arrest for murder.”

Deaton recovered quickly, assessed the most dangerous of the three, then threw the scalpel with an accuracy that shocked Peter. Derek moved quickly, batting the scalpel away from its path towards Chris. Peter once more tugged ineffectually at the restraints binding him to the Nemeton.

Deaton reached into a sack he must’ve brought with them and came up empty. Chris held up a pouch and several vials. “Looking for these? You were kinda busy so I took it upon myself to liberate them.”

“You missed one,” Deaton said, removing a vial from the pouch around his neck.

“Don’t move!” Stilinski ordered, bringing his service weapon to bear.

Deaton ignored him and drank down whatever potion was in the vial. A moment later he fell to the ground. Aside from Peter being bound naked to the Nemeton and painted with runes, it was all rather anticlimactic.

~*~*~*~

Peter heard voices as he approached Derek’s loft. Scott said, “But it was Peter, so we don’t care, right?”

Peter put on his game face and opened the door. At the sound, everyone turned to stare at him. Only Derek didn’t look surprised. “You need to teach your puppies to be better aware of their surroundings,” Peter said.

“They’re not puppies,” Derek said mildly.

“You might not care about me,” Peter said, watching Scott’s expression turn sheepish, then defiant, “but three people died before we stopped our friendly neighborhood vet.” Peter considered telling Scott that Deaton had been saving him for last, but something made him think twice. It wasn’t because he was going soft; he’d save the information for just the right time when it could do the most damage.

Peter only stuck around long enough for everyone to be brought up to speed on what had gone down, and then he left without saying goodbye to anyone. He wasn’t surprised when Chris followed him out. Neither of them spoke until they reached the patch of dirt in front of the loft that served as a front yard.

“I’m sorry.” 

Peter didn’t have to try too hard to hide his surprise at the apology because Chris wasn’t looking at him, but staring off into the distance.

“Gerard promised to leave you and your family alone if I . . .” He shook his head. “I was naive to believe him. Anyway, I am sorry.”

Peter nodded. He didn’t try to stop Chris when he walked over to his SUV, or when he backed out of the parking spot, or when he pulled out of the lot. Peter closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Chris’ heartbeat until it faded away into nothing.

Peter opened his hand and looked at the pendant that Chris had placed in his palm: a St. Michael medallion that Peter had given him many years ago. Peter rubbed his thumb against the back as if he could read the words inscribed there through the pad of his thumb. _Stay Strong; Be Safe; Know Love_

They couldn’t go back, Peter thought as he slipped the necklace into the front pocket of his jeans. But maybe they could go forward.

The End


End file.
